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Monday, May 18, 2015

Terry Schmida - Stranger than Fiction

There are few places in Florida as colorful or
intriguing as Key West and few people who know the inside stories of the
Southernmost City as well as Terry Schmida. This Canadian ex-pat served as a
reporter and editor at the Key West Citizen for two decades, and has pretty
much seen it all. Since 2006, Schmida has shared his knowledge with readers in
three true crime books that delve into the darker side of his adopted hometown.

Schmida also comes from what he calls “good
writing stock.” His great-uncle, Myles "The Slasher" Finnan, was an
Irish Republican poet who had to depart the Emerald Isle because of his
nationalist writings, and his beloved, late uncle, Tony Brady, was a successful
author of children’s books. Schmida's mother is the novelist Joanna Brady,
author of The Woman at the Light (St.
Martin's Press, 2012.) “As you can see,” he says, “I had plenty of
inspiration.” These influences manifested themselves early on,
as Schmida took it upon himself to create a class newspaper called "The
Box" - named for his teacher's "time-out" area - while he was
still in grade school. He sold those copies for 25 cents each.

Schmida's full-time career in journalism,
however, grew out of economic necessity. “When I graduated college in '95, I
entered a different world than I expected,” he says. “Canada was in the midst
of a severe recession, and jobs in the media were hard to get. So I moved into
my parents’ basement. When my parents
relocated to Key West in 1995, the basement left with them, so I went along for
the ride and never looked back.”

Upon his arrival in Key West, Schmida leafed
through the local phone book looking for media-related opportunities. The first
job offer he got was from the Citizen
which, coincidentally, was owned by former Toronto neighbor Ken Thomson. Schmida started out building ads in the composing room
and eventually parlayed his interest in music to a position as an Arts and
Entertainment writer. When the paper’s
crime reporter left, the job was offered to Schmida.

Schmida had always been fascinated by crime
stories. As a boy, he was a fan of Max Haines’s “Crime Flashback” column in The Toronto Sun. The interest followed
him to university in Montreal. “In college, I would go to places where famous
crimes took place,” he says. “I got a thrill thinking that a crime happened on
the very spot where I was standing. So I jumped into the crime reporter gig
with gusto.” Schmida kept this “dream
job” until he was offered a promotion to Arts and Entertainment editor. Since the new position was non-controversial,
allowed him to work his own hours and included a pay raise, he took it.

Although he had moved over to a new beat,
Schmida’s love for crime reporting didn’t disappear – it just took on a new
form. In 2003, he began writing a collection of stories chronicling some of Key
West’s more interesting crimes. “A hundred years ago, when Miami was still a
little hamlet, Key West was the biggest city in Florida,” Schmida explains. “So
there was no shortage of material.”
Three years later, he had completed Terry
Schmida's True Crime Stories of Key West and the Florida Keys.

The day after the book was published, he wrote
the first story for Volume 2 which came out in the fall of 2008. “I took a
break after the second book,” Schmida says, “but the crimes continued to
happen. This is a growth industry.” He completed and published Volume 3 in late
2014.

Schmida describes his books as “history viewed
through a prism of law enforcement” and admits that writing about true crimes
in a small town poses some unique challenges. “I didn’t want to open old wounds
by writing about crimes that were too recent where someone’s relative might
have been involved,” he says. “I had to ride a fine line between entertainment
and picking a corpse to make money.” While his first crime book contains mostly
older stories, Volume 2 is more of a fifty-fifty mix of old and new, and Volume
3 is composed mainly of even more recent crimes.

Upon Volume 3's release, Schmida left his most
recent capacity as the Citizen's
Education and Social Services editor, to concentrate fully on his own books and
freelance work. At 45, Schmida is now hitting his stride, covering Key West,
Marathon, and all of Monroe County for the Konk
Life and Mile Marker newspapers,
and serving as the morning news anchor at the Island 107.l FM radio station.

Schmida’s current book project is a chronicle
about his decades spent as a Florida Keys news hound. He is also working on
another book about Key West’s great eccentrics, and is even exploring the
possibility of establishing a crime museum in the old city jail building.

Lastly, Schmida has begun experimenting with
fiction writing but admits that he has some reservations about that particular
genre. “I tend to be suspicious of fiction because whenever I read it, I can
see factual elements embedded in the story,” he says. “I want to tell the
writer to just tell me the truth – because the uncut truth is usually stranger
than fiction."

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I'm currently a columnist for The Island Reporter, a publication serving the South Gulf Beaches in St. Petersburg, Florida. My Florida Authors series features articles based on exclusive interviews with some of the state’s best writers. My “Pride & Joy” column
profiles individuals who give back to their communities through volunteerism.
I'm also the author of two novels."Project June Bug" is the story of a young teacher’s efforts to help a student with ADHD. It has received 12 awards, including Premier Book Awards “2009 Book of the Year.” My latest novel, "Jacqueline,"(published by Anaiah Press) is a middle grade historical based on an experience my dad, a WWII veteran, had while stationed in France shortly after D-day. Four of my stories have appeared in "Chicken Soup for the Soul" editions.
I live on Treasure Island (yes, it's as beautiful as it sounds), with my husband and two rather noisy macaws. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, walking on the beach, and visiting family in New Jersey, where I'm the proud "Grammy" of six beautiful grandchildren (with the pictures to prove it!)